Search For Man Missing After Tubing Incident On Farmington River To Resume Thursday

FARMINGTON — The search for a missing 25-year-old East Hartford man who fell into the Farmington River on Tuesday was drawing to an end without success on Wednesday evening. The search is schedule to resume Thursday.

Nasir Alam was one of seven people who went tubing on the rain-swollen river on Tuesday afternoon. Just before 4 p.m., they fell into the river near rapids.

Six people were pulled from the river, Farmington Police Chief Paul Melanson said. Firefighters searched the river's banks west of Unionville for hours on Tuesday.

On Wednesday morning, seven teams of searchers — between 30 and 40 people — scoured the banks for a couple of miles in each direction, Melanson said. Boats could not go into the river because of the high volume of water and low visibility.

By 4 p.m. Wednesday, the search had been scaled back, Melanson said. The state police helicopter flew over the area but didn't spot the missing man.

Searchers will have to wait for water levels to recede, Melanson said. Police might be able to but a boat into the water in the next two days to continue the search if conditions improve on the river, he said.

Richard Czuprynski, one of the six men who were rescued, said he tried to help Alam.

"I tried to swim over to him and try to help him. Before I could grab him the water pushed me away," he said. He said he had just met Nasir the day before.

The seven people, all in their early 20s, started tubing in the afternoon near the Burlington town line, and got into trouble about a quarter mile north of the Route 4 bridge west of Unionville, Melanson said.

A bystander called police at 3:54 p.m. saying that several people had fallen off their tubes in the river, and were yelling for help, police Lt. Colin Ryan said.

Six of them were pulled from the water near Farmington Avenue at Huckleberry Hill Road. They suffered minor bumps and scrapes and all refused medical treatment, Ryan said. It didn't appear that they were wearing life jackets, Ryan said.

Ryan said Alam was last seen in the river in the vicinity of the Farmington-Avon town line.

Police received the emergency call around 4 p.m. The river was swollen and moving rapidly because of heavy rain in the area, and the location where the man disappeared is considered a very rough stretch of the river, Ryan said.

The recent storms and roughness of the river reduced visibility in the water to about zero, and the water was too rough to put search boats in the river, Ryan said.

Tuesday's incident was the third in a little over a week in which a person was reported missing. A New Milford man disappeared in Lake Lillinonah in New Milford on June 11, and a woman was reported missing Saturday morning in New Hartford, also on the Farmington River.

In the Lake Lillinonah case, a body was discovered Tuesday morning in Bridgewater, across the lake from the New Milford state park where the search for New Milford photographer Eric Langlois began. The body has not yet been positively identified.

In the other Farmington River case, searchers have been unable to find any sign of 33-year-old Rachel Greene, who was tossed into the river when the raft she was on hit a rock in the early hours of Saturday.

DEEP spokesman Dennis Schain said heavy rain has created high water and strong currents that can make lakes and rivers more dangerous. He said people should be cautious and use good judgment in and near bodies of water, he said.